Today's date,
October 30, 2002
This
light aluminum chair was something someone recommended from Dallas Society
for Crippled Children. It was a God sent at the time. We had exhausted
every type of stroller going to the very largest we could. This little
chair was light and tilted back in order to push her easily. It wasn't
that expensive. At the time I think it was around fifty dollars. We have
never had any financial aid on buying her chairs, and just over the limit
on the financial scale, sometimes as little as ten dollars for
assistance.. After the chairs went up to around eight hundred dollars it
became more difficult. Today she uses a light fold up chair which at one
time cost us seven hundred fifty dollars. We found a company who sells the
exact same chair for one hundred, ninety-nine dollars and that company is:
Dr. Leonard's Health Care catalog, 100 Nixon Lane, P.O. Box 7821, Edison,
NJ 08818-7821 The light fold up chair she has now is very good for me. It
is much lighter and can easily be lifted into the trunk of the car. I
spent too many years lifting the big heavy chairs.
With Rhonda using this
light chair in the picture (not the same one she uses today) we were able
to beg a teacher to take her into her class. The teacher, Marsha Palmatery,
was exceptionally brilliant. It was before the days of special education
and it was strictly up to that teacher to take Rhonda. Some of the classes
were upstairs and the inventive teacher used four students, one on each
corner of the chair and they all took Rhonda up the stairs. As usual the
children were ready and willing to accept Rhonda into their world. The
class was for children who all had mild disabilities, but they all were
able to walk.
Maybe there could be a
series of stories just on the issue of chairs alone, but who wants to
recall all the situations? There was one time that was on the bizarre
side. Rodney, my husband, had built a rack on the back of the car to carry
the chair. We were in heavy traffic. Somehow the chair came loose and went
rolling across the medium. There was no way we could stop in the middle of
traffic, by the time we got to an exit, took the road back to where we had
lost the chair, it was gone. I guess we were too flabbergasted to be
angry. It was a little ridiculous and even though we knew it was costing
us a thousand dollars, almost, we couldn't keep from laughing. It was so
sick it was funny. "Who would steal a wheelchair?"
Lest any of this material
be used for politics, I will wait for six days to list anymore. By that
time the election will be over. |